90s Music Review: Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory

Whether it was Smashmouth, Matchbox 20, Britney Spears, Nirvana or a host of other bands, nobody came crashing out of the gate during the 90s like Linkin Park with their debut album: Hybrid Theory. Though Rap/Rock isn't as popular today as it once was, it's still out there and people still have a love for the genre. Linkin Park, along with just a couple of other bands, pioneered this groundbreaking new trend back in 1999. No matter who you were, one couldn't help but notice the sheer influence that Hyrbrid Theory has had from it's release until today.

The album boasts four singles. This in itself isn't bad. I'd challenge you to find another band besides Nirvana that had four singles on their debut album that did as well as Linkin Park did. That's not all though, if you listen to the entire record, you'll find that every song on the cd is singelworthy. I mean that from my heart: There is not one bad song on Hybrid Theory, which is getting more and more uncommon as time goes along.

"One Step Closer" launched them into mainstream popularity, but Hybrid Theory didn't stop there. It delived punch after punch with "Papercut" an edgy techno vibed rocker, "In The End" and "Crawling" The feel of these singles translates very well from song to song and the main theme of the album is definitely there. What's so amazing about Hybrid Theory is the vulnerability and the willingness by the band to do something different. A) They were mixing rap with rock when nobody else did, with the exception of Limp Bizkit and B) They refused the status quo to write one single and use every other song the album for an "insert filler here" space.

With Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park gave the people what they wanted. We were yearning for something fresh, something new and something raw. Some call it coincidence that Hyrbrid Theory did so well. I call it honesty. They filled the album with hits, they didn't insert any filler, they pioneered their genre, and to this day they're released great albums. If there was every a cornerstone of the 90s, Hybrid Theory should surely be up for consideration, if not be an auto-include.